Scott Steiner Blasts The Current State Of Pro Wrestling

Grotesquely inflated WCW and WWE veteran Scott Steiner was one of the most mush-mouthed rambling interviews this side of the Ultimate Warrior, so it's something of a surprise to see his quotes in the . Whether he's right or not, he's not stupid about it:

"The 'PG era' blows," he said. "The best time in wrestling was with the nWo and the Monday Night War between WCW and WWE. You had competition. Now there is no competition. I feel bad for the guys and the wrestlers coming up now. They are slotted into a character that sometimes they can't even do. Most of the time it's bullshit, and it sucks. I wouldn't want to do it. You have a stupid character to do, but if you don't do it, you don't have a job.

"You need competition for a business to truly thrive. Look at Vince [McMahon's] numbers since he bought WCW. Then again he just lost like $400 million, projected to lose $50 million this year. So you couldn't predict that after he bought WCW and doing 5's and 6's on the ratings scale."

Steiner is referring the tumbling price of WWE stock, which experts chalked up to a disappointing TV deal and poor subscriber numbers for WWE Network, the company's online-streaming service. "They should be able to get $9.99 for the Network," Steiner said. "When do you concede that you failed?...When are they going to concede that they are not as smart as they think they are?"

"Once in a while I watch," Steiner said. "There are guys out there, but once you realize who it's controlled by; when you downsize a product, now they have more control over more guys. The business is so shackled now. Even when you have a breakout star, they don't let you break out.

"…The only way it's going to come back is if a TV person like [Rupert] Murdoch or someone with a lot of money but has an avenue of TV. A revenue stream for TV where they want programming like Ted [Turner] did. That's it. You have to have a big money player, or it's not going to happen."

These days, Steiner, 51, spends his days making occasional appearances on the indy circuit, as well as hawking workout DVDs and signing autographs. That's why he was in Miami at Florida Supercon, so the Herald asked him about his big Superman-esque "S" logo.

"Do I look like a little kid to you? Comic books are a big thing. I looked at them when I was a kid. I'm not a kid anymore, so I kind of grew out of that phase. There is obviously a place for them because the movies do so good. The 'S' is because my freaks realized they weren't with a normal man but a Superman. That's why they called me the 'Big Bad Booty Daddy.'"

Now that's the Steiner I remember.

In other improbably muscled nWo alumni news, Buff Bagwell might be doing porn.

[ Miami Herald]